Self Worth

“A well-known speaker started off his seminar holding up a $20.00 bill. In the packed room, he asked, “Who would like this $20 bill?” Hands started going up. He said, “I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this.”

He proceeded to crumple up the $20 dollar bill. He then asked, “Who still wants it…?” Still the hands were up in the air. “Well,” he replied, “What if I do this?” And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now crumpled and dirty. “Now, who still wants it?” Still the hands went into the air.

“My friends, we have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20. Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We may feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value.”

“Dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless to those who DO LOVE you. The worth of our lives comes not in what we do or who we know, but by WHO WE ARE. You are special – Don’t EVER forget it! Count your blessings, not your problems.”

When we think or say something negative about ourselves, even if we don’t really mean it, the thought carries creative energy. EVERY thought is a cause that creates an effect. An undisciplined mind, easily tempted into faithless and unloving thoughts, is a huge deterrent to success. They sabotage the dynamic by which the universe is programmed to support us. Releasing negative self-concepts is important not simply because they hurt you; it’s important because they’re not true.

The spiritual journey is a path of surrendering our fear-based thoughts and allowing them to be replaced by God’s. The reason to embrace a positive self-image is that it describes you as God thinks of you. Such painful and negative self-concepts arise from over-identification with the material plane. Identifying with your material self rather than with your spiritual self will always leave you vulnerable to self-hating projections, because the mortal self is not who you truly are. The mortal plane is, at best an ever-changing parade of individual perceptions that lack a consistent theme. Sometimes you’ll deem yourself worthy of self-regard, and sometimes you won’t – depending on what’s in your bank account, other people’s opinions of you, and so forth.

On the mortal plane, none of us are perfect all the time. But on the spiritual plane, all of us are perfect all the time. Who we really are, perfect creations of God, unchangeable and unlimited, none of us more or less brilliant than anyone else – is the MOST POSITIVE SELF-CONCEPT POSSIBLE! To self-identify according to your spiritual rather than material reality is enlightenment. From this perspective, you see that you are the light. No thought or condition of darkness – that is, lovelessness in your own mind or in anyone else’s – has any bearing whatsoever on the truth of who you are or what the universe has planned for you. Your past, your mistakes, other people’s opinions about you, even your failures do not in any way limit who you are at this present moment or what is possible for you right now.

Marianne Williamson states through A Course in Miracles that all of us are special and none of us are special. No one has any more or less capacity than anyone else to be used as a conduit for the genius that pours forth constantly from the Mind of God. This genius pours into us as one, but is accepted by us separately. God’s greatness is a gift that is offered to all of us, but it’s our choice whether or not to receive it.

She adds that, we lack in faith what exists within us because we lack in faith Who exists within us. Each of us has a unique part to play in the healing of the world. Each of us is assigned by God a function that only we can fill. At this level, none of us are in competition with each other, for the universe has an infinite number of pieces of pie. My piece does not take away from yours, and yours does not take away from mine. There is space for everyone’s gifts to flower. There is more than enough room for all of us.

Spiritual growth involves giving up the stories of your past so the universe can write a new one. You are not denying your past; you are simply transcending any of its negative aspects. Right now, in this moment, the universe is responding not to your past but to the truth of who you are, always were, and always will be. We’ve all got “right stuff” because all of us are meant to channel the spiritual realities of talent, creativity, and intelligence. Whether or not you’ve always known this, or practiced it, there lies within you in this very moment the latent ability to create and achieve beyond your wildest dreams.

And this never changes. It doesn’t matter what “mistakes” you thought you made, or how the economy is doing, etc. etc. It matters only where you place your thinking/consciousness now. Know who you are and connect to that Inner Source that wants you to Thrive, and moving mountains will seem small compared to what you can do!

-Who would attempt to fly with the tiny wings of a sparrow when the mighty power of an eagle has been given to him?